Do you have a targeted and strategic PR plan in place? One with clear, measurable goals and objectives? Goals and objectives which directly effect business goals?
A PR plan which provides a clear road map of where you are, where you need to go, and responsibilities of all parties involved to get there? Can you show with data, how your PR plan and associated investment (both in time and money) produced real business results (leads, sales, and revenue)?
Either way, if you answered no to any of the above questions, the steps below will walk you through the process of creating an effective and measurable PR plan for your business.
Understand your GSOT (Goals, Strategies, Objectives, Tactics)
These are the building blocks of your PR plan, so it’s important to understand what they are, how they are different, and how they work together.
- Goals: These are your primary outcomes
- Strategy: How you will achieve your goals
- Objectives: Measurable steps you take as part of your strategy to achieve your goals.
- Tactics: Tools you use to pursue the objective associated with your strategy
Your PR plan must include all of these elements which work together effectively.
Determine Your PR Plan Goals
The biggest mistake smart, well-meaning people make when they develop a public relations plan is not to first look at goals. It’s easy to get lost in the excitement and the plethora of communications tactics available for modern PR practitioners and completely lose track of the reason we do public relations in the first place: To grow our businesses.
So the first thing you must do before you even begin to think through tactics and timeline is determine goals. These should be tied to real business results.
Think Both Long and Short-Term
Think in the long-term and then break it down to shorter milestones. Let’s say in five years you want to make X in revenue, launch X product lines, and have 50 percent of the market in X cities. Great!
Now work backward and break that down first to where you need to be at the end of year one to make that happen. Then divide that up into monthly or quarterly milestones and objectives to track.
It’s crucial you work in both the long-term and short-term space. Things must be done in the context of the long-term but planned within the scale, realities, and agility of the short-term.
Strategy Drives Your Goals
Your goals are your “what,” your strategy is “your” how. A strategy is still not tactics though. Strategy is “how” in approach, whereas tactics are “how” in action.
A general strategy statement might look something like this: Execute an integrated communications plan which uses the PESO model to drive leads, nurture them through the funnel, and convert them to sales.
Go through each media type and write out how it supports the overall strategy to keep the purpose in focus when working through your objectives and tactics. If your plan is a play, the strategy is your plot and the different media types are the actors.
We will use paid media to…
We will use earned media to…
We will use shared media to…
We will use owned media to…
Objectives Are Proof of an Effective Strategy
Let’s say your goal is to increase revenue by X dollars by the end of 2018. What needs to happen to achieve that goal?Objectives force you to break down goals in a specific and measurable way.
They serve as “proof” you are executing your strategy effectively (or indications you need to make adjustments).
Here’s an example: I want X dollars of revenue. How do I achieve that?
- How many widgets do I need to sell to do that?
- What’s the number of leads I need to bring in?
- Can I increase my conversion rate from leads to sales?
- What measurable markers do I need to achieve to reach that goal?
Objectives are always going to be centered around action verbs, such as:
- Drive
- Increase
- Convert
These objectives, in turn, determine your tactics and help you focus, so you execute your strategy in a way that drives results aligned with your goals.
Tactics Achieve Your Objectives- the Action Items
It is not until we’ve laid out all of this we finally look at tactics. To outline tactics go back to the strategy you laid out, as well as the measurable objectives that strategy will drive. Lay out each of your objectives and then build tactics that integrate together to drive each.
So let’s say you have own a service -oriented company and your goal is to double the number of subscribers to your service in 2018.
The objectives you’ve laid out are:
- Generate 10,000 leads
- Convert 10 percent of those leads
- Retain 80 percent of current subscribers
Then look at the four media types and build out tactics to achieve those objectives. Start with owned media and then build out from there, integrating each media type together and adjusting as you do.
Don’t Forget PR Metrics
As you build out tactics for each media type, you’ll also build out metrics to measure those tactics and follow your prospect through your marketing funnel. Metrics whose growth supports the objectives, which in turn support the goal.
Things like keywords search rank, and website visitors and engagement are metrics you might want to measure for owned media. Whereas, click rate, downloads, and conversion rate at certain goals or milestones would make sense for paid media.
Lay out metrics for each media type and use them, along with your objectives to measure and analyze progress of your PR plan. This allows you to adjust, based on data, to keep your strategy focused, on track, and driving your goals.
A version of this article appeared online at Spin Sucks